The Freak Province

Quebec used to be Canada's freak province. It's still strange and has a number of laws I consider stupid - the language laws. In Quebec it's illegal to post signs with English on them. More accurately, it's illegal to have signs in any language other than French. Because Quebec is French and they have real insecurities about their identity. I don't feel like walking through Chinatown here in Toronto makes me any less English; I think it makes me feel more English. It certainly makes me feel more white. Anyway, Quebec has settled down in recent years (aside from a huge student protest about tuition that lasted months and brought down a government). Quebec isn't trying to separate from Canada any more. That whole plan got messed up when, after a narrow loss in the last referendum, the leader of the Separatist party got on stage, in front of about a thousand microphones, drunk and unleashed a stream of racist vitriol. Bad for the cause that. I don't know whether Alberta really felt like Canada needed a new freak province and was willing to step in, you know, just being a team player or whether Alberta was a closet freak the whole time but nobody noticed. That will happen with prairie Provinces, people tend to forget about them.

Then oil topped $100 per barrel and suddenly everybody remembered Alberta.

Alberta has three interesting things in it: the Calgary Stampede (the Greatest Celebration of Animal Cruelty on Earth), dinosaur bones, and oil. Except it isn't really oil, it's bitumen or some shit. Everyone calls it the tar sands but since no one is willing to pay very much for either tar or sand (and no one who would buy either individually would pay anything for them mixed together - this definitely isn't a "you got chocolate on my peanut butter" thing) and people are willing to spend a lot of money for this shit, I assume it's some kind of oil. I could look it up but I don't care that much. The only reason I writing about it at all is because it's making Alberta insane and taking much of the rest of the continent with it.

The United States is dedicated to achieving "energy independence" and they want Canadian oil so they can reach that goal. Since Canada isn't the US and the US isn't Canada, I don't see how this makes them "independent" - what they are really talking about is backing away from the Carter Doctrine and ongoing engagement in the Middle East. The key to this process is a pipeline from the tar sands in Alberta through a bunch of US states and on to wherever it finishes (don't know don't care).

The Canadian government wants this pipeline badly. The Alberta government wants it worse. Even mild-mannered Saskatchewan is getting heated over this. The US government wants it too. So it should be a done deal, right?

Apparently not. I don't really give a shit about the pipeline. It's a terrible idea from any perspective except for those who are going to make a lot of money from it. Like the province of Alberta. Their problem, though, is because they are a government and not a corporation, they can't just do things because they will make a lot of money. They have to create a fine veneer of logic, backed by a specific political position before they can start raking it in. And that's what is making this whole cluster fuck interesting.

Both the National and Alberta governments are currently holding the "This is good for Canada" line. Which is a fine line to hold, as long as you can answer the question, "How is this good for Canada?" And they can't. So they fall back on a wonderful old chestnut, "The Americans are watching!" This, in Canadian politics, is the equivalent of "Mom, not in front of my friends!!!" Canadian politicians really believe the Canadian people give a shit about what the American government thinks about them.

More problematically, and more seriously, Alberta is following the US to the political right. About 25 years ago Canada's Conservative Party (the Canadian equivalent of the Republicans) was destroyed in an election. Alberta was so disgusted by the rest of Canada's voting, they created a new party to replace the Conservatives. Instead, the two merged and became the party that currently holds power nationally. But the Albertan version of the Conservative Party isn't far-right enough for Alberta so they created another new Conservative Party - the Wild Rose party.

Here's a helpful tip - when political parties take names from really unthreatening things, it's because they are threatening. If I ever hear of a political party called "the picture of a baby and a puppy playing together party" I'll know the end is nigh.

The Wild Rose party describe themselves as "fiscally conservative" but want you to know they also welcome libertarians and social conservatives. Non-Canadians will not understand how fucking weird that is for Canada. For generations our Conservatives were less conservative than the American Democrats. And our Liberals were left of anything on the American spectrum - and then we had another party to the left of the Liberals. So a bunch of Libertarians out on the prairie is weird.

I can't help but notice Saskatchewan and Manitoba (also prairie provinces) aren't getting all fucked in the head or trying to privatize everything. Alberta is. I wrote before about Alberta taking a very heavy hand in the university system. They also have two tiered medical (the political equivalent of a flat tax here - a conservative dream that will never happen).

I say fuck the freak province. I've never liked Alberta. Not since Gretzky got traded to LA. I can't help but think this is karmic retribution for sending the Great One to the Great Satan. Maybe it's time for another referendum on sovereignty. This time the rest of Canada can vote on whether or not Alberta gets to stay.